Data Viz: AMNH Visit & Case Study

So I met up with the homies from Data Viz. class last Tuesday at the American Museum of Natural History. I know what your thinking... and yes, this is the museum where 'Night at the Museum' was filmed. lol!

We all met up there to meet with a woman named Meghan. She's the director of education for ages 4-8, or something like that. She's in charge of the Discovery Room which is a very hands on interactive space for children. Within early education, in general, interactivity is key. The lower level is for children 5+, while the upstairs level were for 8+.

Goal

The goal of this lab is to introduce kids to the concept of seismology.

Information

Most of their realtime data is gathered from both USGS (United States Geological Survey) and IRIS (Integrated Research Information System).

Story Visual Form

So Jessie, the DT fellow who designed this space used Javascript to create the visual and Raspberry Pi for the three smaller monitors. For the static data viz, Jessie started out with sketches and then probably developed them using Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop.

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Monitors

The upstairs section is the Seismology lab, and that's where our case study begins. So once you hit the top of the steps, you immediately see 4 monitors. 3 small ones, above a large one. The small ones show the seismic patterns of 3 seismology lab locations based on real time data. The larger screen was one that showed a rotating globe with a lot of circles of various colors scattered throughout it. These was clearly a popular station for the lab. With 2 knobs and a mouse, all visitors have control over various variables that can be made larger or smaller on the screen. Users also had the ability to rotate the screen.

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Seeing the three monitors I could deduce what data viz it was showing, but i'm almost positive an 8 year old would not. I think better labeling for these monitors would help. The largest and most interactive screen is very eye catching at first but as soon as I got close to it, I felt a bit overwhelmed by the text that never left the screen. Also, since these museums spaces are a huge attraction for tourists, the lack of multilingual labeling and text for the interactive objects and screens was a bit disappointing.

Seismograph + Monitors

Above the 3 monitors is an old seismograph. I liked the general layout of this section. Seismograph -> 3 Screens -> Large interactive screen. With these different forms of tech (old -> new) it felt like I was traveling through time or seeing the history of tech used to measure seismic data.

The static data viz. that hung to the left of the screens was a nice addition but there was no significance to the separate colors used. These colors didn't seem to connect well either.

Physical Interactivity

The more physical interactivity within the space was cool! I loved the simplicity of it. The Data viz and information for each of the 3 interactions should be placed closer to the interaction that the information is associated with. Have the physical interactions be it's own group and then the informational graphics be a separate group doesn't make it easy for kids 8+ to realize which graphic is associated with which physical interaction.

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Overall:

This lab provides good basic knowledge of Seismology and how global it is, but I think a huge aspect they missed was the after math or effects of such large seismic activity. If you talk about to formation and creation of such an event, you should equally cover the gravity of such an event on both mother nature and the human race.

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Questions for Jessie?

Did you have to learn anything technical things on the fly?

What was your favorite part of this project?

Why rasberry pi?

What sort of future iterations would you do if you were asked?

Did you ever 'bump heads' w/ those higher up in the museum?

How was working w/Javascript?

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